Children's mental health services receive £25m boost
Neil Puffett
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
An additional £25m has been allocated to health chiefs across the country as part of efforts to accelerate plans for improving mental health services for children and young people.
So far this year £149m has already been awarded to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) as part of a £1.4bn government commitment to improve mental health services for children and young people over the period up to 2020.
NHS England said that, in recognition of the pressures faced by local areas in transforming their services, it has "reprioritised" spending on national programmes to identify an additional £25m for CCGs to spend in 2016/17.
In order to get a slice of the cash, CCGs will be asked to provide details of how they intend to improve average waiting times for treatment by March 2017.
The additional investment comes just a month after a review of local improvement arrangements for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) rated 80 per cent of areas as not good enough.
Clare Murdoch, NHS England's national director for mental health, said: "This additional funding is evidence that improving mental health services is an absolute priority for the NHS.
"We hope this year to see some real headway being made on ensuring that children and young people with mental health needs are seen and treated as quickly and as close to home as possible."
NHS England said it is expected that the funding will also support CCGs to continue to invest in staff training and drive improvements to crisis, liaison and home treatment interventions suitable for under 18s, with the aim of minimising inappropriate admissions to in-patient, paediatric or adult mental health wards.
CCGs will be free to pool the funding across NHS organisations in their area to help deliver local transformation plans for mental health.
Dr Max Davie, assistant officer for health promotion at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said: "At a time when children's and young persons' mental health services are so stretched, this additional funding is welcome.
"But given that around 850,000 children and young people experience a mental health problem, this represents just £30 per person in need of assistance. Such a small sum will never be sufficient to meet need."
"We need to rethink how we deliver support and treatment for mental health in children and young people, co-ordinating local agencies to make the best use of child mental health service resources.
"We also need a public health approach to mental health, but this news comes at the same time that government makes public health cuts to the tune of £50m in 2016/17.
"These cuts will see reductions in school nurses and health visitors, services vital for maintaining both the physical and mental health of our children.
"If the new Prime Minister wants to be taken seriously on her desire to improve mental health for the UK, she must supplement today's cash injection by reversing these cuts."
